Drafting Specification and Offers

This intensive one-day workshop explores tools, techniques and methods that can be used to develop specifications and ‘go-to-market’ documents that are effective.

Introduction

This workshop aims to equip participants with knowledge and skills to improve their capability in how to draft specifications (also known as requirements, scope of work etc.) and ‘go-to-market’ documents to better support the sourcing process

This course is designed for:

The workshop will benefit those who are responsible for preparing ‘go-to-market’ documents, or specifications, requirements, scope of work for inclusion in a contract or procurement process.

Course structure

There will be pre- and post-workshop activities totalling about 90 minutes additional workload, as the workshop is founded upon 70/20/10 principles. The pre-workshop activity will stimulate thought about the role of a category manager in contributing to organisational results. The workshop will be led by an experienced facilitator, and will include nine sessions involving exercises, case studies, presentations and facilitated discussions. The post-workshop activity will seek to reinforce the learning and to maximise the transfer of knowledge from the workshop to the workplace.

Benefits of attending

Attendance will help build understanding of how to develop specifications and go-to-market documents in accordance with ‘best practice’.

As well as this participants will gain three key benefits from attending:

• More understanding of the importance of specifications in optimising competition and driving innovation (i.e. outcome focused)
• More understanding of ‘go-to-market’ templates and of the resources available to support sourcing
• Awareness of ‘tips and traps’ of how to develop effective specifications and ‘go-to-market’ documents

Key learning outcomes

• Describe how the specification and offer documents can promote or diminish innovation and competition
• Develop specifications and ‘go-to-market’ documents that are outcome focused and appropriate for the project using language which promotes supplier comprehension and engagement
• Plan key sourcing events allocating timescales that are appropriate to the scale and complexity of the activity.
• Manage risk and opportunity in the sourcing process

Course Content

Free and open competition

• Overview of the procurement process
• Sourcing and procurement compared
• The strategic sourcing process

Elements of the bid package

• Defining project scope
• Gathering data
• Stakeholder identification
• Project kick off and checkpoint

Specifications 1/2

• Analysing spend and demand
• Understanding our stakeholders needs and how best to engage them
• What outcomes are we seeking to achieve?
• What are value levers?

Specifications 2/2

• Who are our current suppliers?
• Reviewing potential suppliers
• Supply market analysis
• Engaging and briefing potential suppliers

Engaging with potential suppliers

• Understanding transition costs (changing suppliers)
• Developing strategy options – what contracting and commercial model will drive the results and the outcomes we want?
• Selection of strategy/ies
• Benefits estimated

Managing risks during the sourcing phase

• Potential risks in the sourcing process
• Scaling the risks
• Treating risks during the sourcing phase

Preparing ‘go-to-market’ documents

• Selecting the right document for the right sourcing strategy
• Defining outcomes / objectives upfront
• Include contract documents
• Specifying the evaluation criteria and evaluation process (e.g. shortlisting, supplier presentations etc.)
• Developing the evaluation plan

Capturing knowledge and lessons learned

• Capturing lessons learned
• Deciding what is significant and what is “noise”
• Creating and sharing transferable learning points